After Martha Stewart’s Halloween homeless costume disaster, I have to know: celebrities, why do you risk it? | Coco Khan

Cynics might say it’s about courting controversy, but I think these fancy dress faux-pas hint at a bleaker truth It’s not easy being an optimist these days. It requires practice, like exercising a muscle. It’s why I like to think of reading the news as a kind of challenge, batting away the miserable updates with optimistic mental rebuttals.

Global heating on track to exceed the 2C threshold? “But we have the technology to turn this around! ” I think. A well-funded global fascist network? “People have overcome worse! ” And so it is that this week I find my optimism being put through its paces by the news of US superstar homemaker Martha Stewart and her offensive Halloween costume of a homeless person, complete with a dirt-smeared face and a sign…